Antoinetta's Story
by Quillweave
Summary: There once was a girl who knew better than to believe in stories.


There once was a girl who knew better than to believe in stories.

Though she was very pretty, with golden curls and sky-blue eyes, rosebud lips and delicate hands, she was not a princess. She was an orphan – the daughter of a man and a woman who, in a tragic accident, were crushed in the mill where they worked. The grain that day, pulverized into flour and gristle and bonemeal and thrown into Lake Rumare, came out pink-red as her cheeks.

So the girl was adopted by her auntie, the only person left in the world who might take her in and put a roof over her head. Her auntie took her home, told her how lucky she was to have her, and shoved a broom into her hands.

Those were the bad days. The years she spent knowing every sound of that horrible cottage, the squeak-squeak of the mice and the creak-creak of the floorboards in the corner where she slept. The shush-shush of the broom, the skrt-scrape of a brush in the cauldron. The hiss-smack of a slap, the snap of a leather belt.

But worst of all was at supper, when her auntie would eat the stew she made. Always complaining – not enough onion, too many carrots, high and nasally. And between complaints, she'd slurp.

Big, greedy spoonfuls, so loud it felt right by her ear. Slurp-slurp-slurp, ugly and wet.

Then, came the prison. Those were the worst days. The girl loved pretty things, shiny things, things that reminded her there might be a better life out there, someday. The girl was delicate-fingered and quiet as a mouse, and it wasn't hard at all to snatch a glimmering necklace from the jeweler's displays while he slept. But her aunt was thick as the cauldron she made her scrub every day, and tried to hawk it off.

When the guards came, she didn't hesitate to point at her. Not for a second.

Eight months, was her sentence. She was thrown on a prison ship, thrown into a cell, thrown into a nightmare. The girl had always liked being pretty – it meant she got more coins when she begged, it meant she could flutter her lashes and sneak out of trouble one more time.

She didn't like being pretty any more. Not here.

The girl was different, when she was finally free. Only eight months, but it felt like years had passed. She'd grown sharper, wiser. But with nowhere else to go, she went home, where the millstones were still black and that cottage still stood.

Her aunt pushed the broom back in her hands, and the poor girl knew she'd traded one prison for another.

Squeak-squeak, went the mice. Creak-creak, went the floorboards, groaning under her hands and knees as she scrubbed.

Shush-shush, went the broom. Whistle-smack, went the belt.

And slurp, slurp, slurp, went her aunt.

But the girl had changed, in the prison. The girl was delicate-fingered and quiet as a mouse, and it wasn't hard at all to catch the old alchemist's eyes and keep them where she needed them, on her body, off her hands. Her aunt was thick as the cauldron she brewed their stew in, full of too many carrots and not enough onion and just a few pinches of nightshade.

Slurp, slurp, slurp, went her aunt.

Slurp, slurp, groan.

Slurp, slurp.

Thud.

Her aunt left her one last mess to clean up, her face dropping in the bowl, splattering broth and bits of carrot.

Thwack-thwack-thwack went the cleaver, splattering red and shards of bone as she chopped her up like she chopped up the carrots. Squish, squish, squish went her aunt, crammed into a sack.

Splish, splash, sploosh went the lake, as her aunt vanished beneath and the slaughterfish gnashed their teeth in joy.

At last, it was quiet. So beautifully, blissfully silent in a way she'd never known. She sat by that lake and listened to it, then left her home behind.

She went all the way back to the city. She'd changed, since the prison, and now she knew how to survive alone. When to make herself small and sad as she felt, to play on pity, when to lift her neck and lower her eyelashes and make herself loveable as she wasn't. She scraped by for months, clinging to the scraps the city would spare, the noisy, chaotic city.

And she remembered that one night, that one beautiful night at the lake, that she had known such perfect silence. She remembered what she had done to earn it.

Thwack-thwack-thwack went her knife, into the belly of a noisy drunk.

Splish-splash-sploosh, went the fish in the lake...

But the footsteps of the man made no noise at all.

He told her what she did was beautiful. He told her she was special, and could join people who were special like her, if she wanted. He gave her the only gift she'd ever received in her life, more bright and beautiful than any jewelry she'd ever sighed over. He gave her a reason to pick herself up out of the gutter again, finding the woman he spoke of and using that glimmering blade to sign the contract in her flesh.

There are new sounds, now. Good sounds. Scritch-scritch-scritch goes the vampire's quill as he patiently teaches the girl her letters. Thwack-clang-thwack goes the dummy as her sisters teach her bladework. Ha-ha-ha goes her Family, laughing and clapping at her tales.

And those perfect moments of silence, they're somehow more perfect still for the whispers that fill them now, the true joy and pride in the voice of her Dread Father.

Snk-sigh goes her dagger, free and hungry. Slurp-slurp goes her victim, alone in his room over his supper. Her feet make no noise at all.

There once was a girl who knew better than to believe in stories.

And she lived happily ever after.


End file.
